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GoWilds first saltwater build

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I Figured I'd start a journal since I like to talk fish seem to spend alot of my spare time on this forum.
I've been in this sw hobby for about a month. I started with a extra 55 gal set up for freshwater that I didn't want to sell. Not having alot of extra money or knowledge. I set it up with the bare minimum. Established live rock, canister filter, powerhead, heater and lights...
My tank was cycled, I added a small amount of live stock, not liking the detris like film building up on the surface, I started looking for overflows, sumps, pumps, MORE LIVE ROCK, etc. Long story short, everything like that is expensive but I found a guy that was moving and had more than his fair share of saltwater tanks and equipment and for a lil more than I was planning to spend on overflows, sumps, pumps, and more live rock, He gave me a deal on a 72 gallon drilled bow front, live sand, 70ish lbs of LR, pumps, sump, two powerheads, and more for $350. Talk about a great deal.

The only thing I am working on now is to make my sump config. and plumping better. I have a 20L that I want to make into a refugium. I couldn't figure out how to get the glass for the baffles for my sump, so I just bought a 10g tank from walmart for $12 that I will strip down and cut the glass to the size I want, 100% silicone that GE makes, gloves, a glass cutter, and I have extra sand paper to smooth the edges.

I'm still doing research to how to configure my sump so the process is on hold. Also, I can't take the sump out of my stand without moving my tank:/ whomp, whomp....

Also, I'm trying to figure out what my saltwater personality is, thanks to mrsaltwatertv.com Whether I am a tank dabbler or a reef enthusiast. I never really knew where I wanted to take my tank. Hence Why I only have 3 small PJ cardinals and sailfin blenny.

When purchasing my first fish, I adopted a red chocolate chip star fish, scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp, 2 turbo snails for free. But thats all that is going on in my tank. Pretty boring lol

I wanted to maybe get into corals, but then some of the cooler looking fish aren't reef safe, or get to big for my tank.

I am no saltwater expert, but a 10g sump won't barely hide much equipment much less give you room for a fuge. I would go for a 30g+ tank to use as your sump. still cheap enough and much more customizeable the bigger you go.

I recently started a 55g reef tank with established LR. I'm just using a nice koralia powerhead and a large skimmer (coralife 220). seems to be working well so far as my corals and critters are growing nicely. it is definitely a slow process, but better to be safe than sorry. especially with a reef tank. I plan on adding a 30g+ sump soon to the setup.

I am no saltwater expert, but a 10g sump won't barely hide much equipment much less give you room for a fuge. I would go for a 30g+ tank to use as your sump. still cheap enough and much more customizeable the bigger you go.

I'm not using a 10 gallon for the sump itself. I am using it for the glass. I'm going to strip it down and cut the glass for the baffles for the 20L sump. I can fit a 29 gallon tank in there or I thought about custom building a narrow but wide sump (cause its a bow front.) of 10dx43lx20h but thats about the same volume as the 29.

The only problem I have is, in order to take out my sump and put in a new sump I have to tank my tank off the stand and go through the top.
or I can just drain my current 20L and put the baffles in while its still under my tank. Not ideal but doable.

I also just picked up 20 more lbs of live rock today that I am curing in my quarantine tank now. I'm going to put the good looking pieces in my tank, take some of the not so good looking pieces from my tank and what ever is left over and put it in the drain area of my sump.

Since we are talking skimmers do you guys know anything about the cone skimmer, coralife 150 or Reef octopus skimmers. I was looking at a recirculating one or the reef octopus 6

Pics

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Here are two pics of my tank and sump. I slowly but surely got rid of my wet/dry trickle filter, so I can redo my sump the way I want with a refugium and live rock. The lights aren't on in the tank. The big white rock on the left is semi-concave underneath so water can flow behind it and its also very porus..

Once my rock gets done curing and I get my refugium set up I'll re- set up the rock in my display tank. Nothing really exciting in the tank. My turbo snails are pretty active and it's cool to see them get onto my powerheads. My red chocolate chip star fish is pretty active too crawling all over. My three pajama cardinals are all pretty boring as they don't do much. My sailfin blenny is not near as shy as he has been but he doesn't do much but watch out from behind a rock, more often now he swims around the tank and eats at the rock . My scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp hangs out upside down underneath one of the concave rocks I have in the middle except when I feed them.